


the worst things beautiful

by hellbeast



Series: broken string [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Barely Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied Cannibalism, Other, vague mentions of hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:32:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1309942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellbeast/pseuds/hellbeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean refuses to remember Hell.</p><p>Sam wishes he could forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the worst things beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> title taken fron the Ours song of the same name

Sam never asks about Hell, not because he isn’t curious and worried (he is), but because Dean had made it clear that Hell was not something he was going to talk about, no matter how much Sam slanted his eyebrows and frowned.

Sam isn’t— _content_ , per se, to leave it be, but Dean seems aware enough and Sam has had yet to catch him thrashing or shaking in his sleep. So he leaves it be.

Dean says he doesn’t remember a damn thing.

And Sam would believe him, if he didn’t know his brother.

But he does, and so he doesn’t.

* * *

The thing is, everything come to head one day, or night rather. They’re on a hunt, to flush some demons out of an apartment complex. Even though Sam thinks it’s weird as fuck that there are just a bunch of demons renting out an entire complex, it’s not a seal, or if it is, Castiel hadn’t deigned it necessary to inform them. And that’s a thing Sam is still getting used to – angels and seals and the _Apocalypse_.

When they first sweep through the apartments – mostly abandoned, as the building is being serviced – they only see two demons, or rather, the demons see them.

They don’t realize it, though, until Sam jerks to a stop and then is sent flying backwards into a wall.

As far as interactions go, it’s pretty standard. The demons make taunts and jibes and Sam and Dean give as good as they get. One’s got Sam pinned by the throat, and Dean’s got the other one shoved against the wall with the Colt shoved under its chin. It’s pretty standard, as far as standoffs go.

That’s when the third demon walks in.

Instead of attacking or taunting though, it takes one look at Dean and trips over its own feet in its haste to get away.

“Winchester!” it spits with false bravado, and the other two demons are somewhere between confused and worried. And Dean-

Dean is staring the demon down like nobody’s business.

“I know you, sweetheart?” the words are familiar, but Dean’s tone is all off – and he sounds like danger and pain, a stark change from how indifferent he’d been since getting back.

“You stay back,” the demon warns, baring its teeth. Dean snorts.

And then sends a knife three inches deep into the demon’s skull.

The demon gurgles as it dies, and the one Dean’s got by the neck starts thrashing in panic. The demon holding Sam looks terrified. Sam can relate.

“Now, I don’t got a _rack_ up here,” Dean says to the captive demon, who stops thrashing instantly, “but I figure this wall will do nicely.”

“No!” the demon shrieks, and black smoke starts to push at the meatsuit’s lips, but Dean practically shoves his entire fist down the demon’s throat, ignoring the choking and half-hearted biting.

“Not done with you yet, _dear_ ,” Dean spits, switching the Colt for a revolver from the waistband of his jeans, shoving it into the demon’s abdomen and shooting one, two, three times.

“Holy shit,” Sam says lowly, pressing himself back against the wall. The demon holding him – its hand lax on his throat, fingers trembling – whimpers.

Using the demon’s limp body as a brace, Dean pulls his arm free and Sam winces at the sheer amount of teeth marks and blood.

That, of course, is when Castiel shows up.

The last demon shoots Sam a wide-eyed look of terror before getting the hell out of its meatsuit and slithering through the open window.

“What,” Castiel intones gravely, taking in the scene, “happened here.”

Despite the fact that Dean is the one who looks like a freakin’ _axe-murderer_ , blood splatters, crazed expression and all, Castiel’s laser-gaze is focused entirely on Sam.

Sam sighs. Just his luck.

* * *

(When Dean found out about Ruby – and really, it was inevitable, but Sam had _hoped_ – he just stared her down and said, eventually, “When I kill you, you’ll be damn grateful there are no racks topside.”

Sam only understood the threat in the most rudimentary of ways, but the way Ruby shies away from even the _mention_ of Dean after that caused something heavy to fill in his chest.

Foreboding, he might have said then. Relief, he knows now, holding Ruby still as Dean rams her own knife deep into her abdomen and twists. Relief that Dean had made the tough – the right – decision where Sam was too blinded by his own stupidity. By his own wants.)

* * *

After – after Ruby, after the most colossal fuck-up that Sam has made, after everything – it gets worse. Because, while he has a pretty good grasp on it most of the time, Sam is _hungry_.

Sam doesn’t talk about it because Dean doesn’t talk about it, the same way neither of them brings up Hell, because that’s how Winchesters deal with things. Sam doesn’t bring up how ruthless Dean has gotten, how effortlessly he kills. And Dean doesn’t bring up how Sam looks at demons, the hunger and the rage and the want. Sam doesn’t bring up Cas or Michael. Dean doesn’t bring up Ruby or Lucifer.

Neither of them bring up Hell.

* * *

(In Hell, in the Cage, Sam eats and eats and _eats_. Lucifer and Michael scream and rage and kill, but Sam is the one the demons run from because he _can’t. stop. **eating**_.)

* * *

Dean refuses to remember Hell.

Sam wishes he could forget.


End file.
